Carlos Alcaraz has given an explanation after he was spotted « sniffing » something during his group stage match at the ATP Finals.
After getting off to a losing start on Monday, the world No. 3 redeemed himself and beat Andrey Rublev in his second round-robin tie.
Alcaraz has been carrying an illness while in Turin and took to the court wearing a neon pink nose strip. He was also seen blowing his nose and sniffing a pot during the changeovers.
There were doubts over whether Alcaraz would even take to the court on Wednesday. Since arriving in Turin, the Spaniard had been practising wearing a nasal strip because he had a blocked nose.
He admitted he didn’t feel well during his opening match and, on Tuesday, the Spaniard cancelled a practice session after spending just a few minutes on court.
But he returned to action as normal to face Rublev, this time donning the nose strip in competition. It seemed to do the trick – he dazzled the crowd with some of his signature drop shots and secured a 6-3 7-6(8) victory.
The pink bandage wasn’t the only thing Alcaraz used to feel better. He also wore vapour rub on his chest for the second match in a row and appeared to be inhaling the fumes from the pot instead of using an inhaler stick.
Asked about the measures he took, the four-time Grand Slam champion said: « Yeah, I know [Nicolas] Jarry wears that thing in the nose. For me, it helped a lot today. I could breathe much better.
« It is something that I’m going to wear more often, I don’t know. Right now in the situation that I’m right now, it help a lot.
« I’m pretty sure that in the next match I’m going to wear it. Tomorrow’s practice I’m going to wear it, for sure. I felt better. I could recover better between points. »
As for what he was sniffing, Alcaraz added: « Yeah, the thing that I sniffed in the changeover, it is for that. It is just to breathe a little bit better. The things between points that I’m doing like that is because of it. It help me a lot to recover and to breathe better. »
And Alcaraz will likely take the same measures for his third and final group match on Friday after noticing an improvement compared to his opening tie.
Alcaraz looked out-of-sorts when he suffered a 6-1 7-5 defeat to Casper Ruud at the start of the week and knew he had to turn things around against Rublev. « The match against Casper, it was difficult one for me. I didn’t feel well, » he explained.
« It doesn’t matter. I had to play better feeling the way I felt against Casper. Today I felt almost the same. Probably a little bit better, but not too much.
« Yeah, today I step on the court thinking I have to play better. That’s it. Try to forget about I’m not feeling well and focus on I have to play a good tennis, playing good rallies, good shots from the baseline, try to serve better. It’s going to be helpful for today’s match, the serve.
« I had many options in my mind if I could not feel well on the baseline running. I’m really happy that everything worked today from the baseline. Long rallies. After that, I could recover between points. I’m really grateful and really happy to be able to do it. »
The Spaniard still has a chance of making it out of the round-robin stage and into the semi-final but he will likely need to beat recent Paris Masters champion Alexander Zverev to have a shot.
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